How to buff calls in NYC?

[chaz90]

Im going to get to the bottom of this. If we a FDNY 911 Participating Ambulance why does FDNY only call us during disasters snowstorms blackouts etc

I'll get to the bottom of my point too.

Because the volunteers are unknown, unreliable, unregulated, and unneeded.

 

[Chimpie]

Im going to get to the bottom of this. If we a FDNY 911 Participating Ambulance why does FDNY only call us during disasters snowstorms blackouts etc

Because maybe they don't want you there for the day to day runs.

 

[46Young]

Im going to get to the bottom of this. If we a FDNY 911 Participating Ambulance why does FDNY only call us during disasters snowstorms blackouts etc

If I had to guess, it's due to not wanting to forfeit any billing opportunities. Think about it, the city wants to have its cake and eat it too - only use vollies in times of crisis, and otherwise restrict you to a few flag downs and direct calls from citizens.

The hospitals especially would be very displeased to lose revenue to vollies. They do 911 to bring in revenue, or at the least get their name out in the street (advertising). While NS-LIJ did not do any PT steering to my knowledge, some other hospitals did - insured to their hospital, the uninsured to city hospitals

 

[sirengirl]

With an increase in headache for FDNY. Now they have 40 separate agencies to regulate as well.

Where I work, we have nine- count them, 9- fire departments. For one county that has less than half a million people. And it is nothing but a constant pain trying to get to a place where we can work with them on calls. Two of them are volunteer. And there is a VAST difference between them and other, paid departments. Case in point the door to truck time for paid departments is <60seconds. The vollies? I've clocked them at 7 minutes before. The training isn't there. The enforcement isn't there. The discipline isn't there.

 

[Flying]

Where I work, we have nine- count them, 9- fire departments. For one county that has less than half a million people.

I raise you with 10 all volunteer fire departments serving a single township of less than 100 thousand.

 

[sirengirl]

I raise you with 10 all volunteer fire departments serving a single township of less than 100 thousand.

Godspeed to you, then.

IF the mindset is to lower response times and get qualified, competent, and truly proactive care to people calling 911, fantastic. If the mindset is to swindle 911 calls from closer units to add notches to a belt, shame.

When I volunteered the county would call us mutual aide if they deemed it a BLS transport (we were BLS only), and people had our direct phone number to call us for minor things (fall with an elbow lac needing stitches and no comorbidities, sniffles, etc). We had very strict protocols on things we could and could not transport, and it was not uncommon for us to call ALS backup to transfer care to the county for what our medical director deemed to be out of our scope.

You're new. You have years and years ahead of you to get sick of running the FDGB, the sniffles, the DTs, the abdominal pains x17 weeks. You will get there. Be patient, and take every opportunity to learn something you can apply toward your next patient, even if it's checking a manual BP in a noisy rig on a BLS transfer.

 

[Carlos Danger]

I raise you with 10 all volunteer fire departments serving a single township of less than 100 thousand.

Amherst, NY?

 

[Flying]

Pretty much any township in Somerset County, NJ
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Somerset_County_(NJ)

Seeing this area in action is like seeing the Freeway Patrol cartoons being played out in real life.

 

[chaz90]

I raise you with 10 all volunteer fire departments serving a single township of less than 100 thousand.

Is this a competition now? 23 volunteer Fire/EMS departments in our county...

 

[DesertMedic66]

Is this a competition now? 23 volunteer Fire/EMS departments in our county...

I'll call your bluff and raise you. We have 1 volunteer fire department in my county that I know of.

That's how poker works right?

 

[46Young]

Where I work, we have nine- count them, 9- fire departments. For one county that has less than half a million people. And it is nothing but a constant pain trying to get to a place where we can work with them on calls. Two of them are volunteer. And there is a VAST difference between them and other, paid departments. Case in point the door to truck time for paid departments is <60seconds. The vollies? I've clocked them at 7 minutes before. The training isn't there. The enforcement isn't there. The discipline isn't there.

Charleston County SC?

 

[NomadicMedic]

Is this a competition now? 23 volunteer Fire/EMS departments in our county...

But, for the most part, the DE people are fairly well trained and there's almost always a paid duty crews to staff the BLS trucks. They're not jumping each others calls. They're vollie departments that (mostly) employ EMTs.

NY and NJ are very different.

 

[ERDoc]

Is this a competition now? 23 volunteer Fire/EMS departments in our county...

Amateurs. Suffolk County, NY has about 139 separate FDs (some of which provide EMS) and VACs. There are at least 6 different PSAPs that I know of. There are multiple private EMS agencies and 2 University EMS services.

 

[RedAirplane]

Central is just the name of their dispatch, not a location.

More is not better if you have no control over the more. If the system wished to allow the volunteer groups to participate as the hospitals do, that would be one thing. Have the volunteers cover a specific area as their first due. Dispatch them just like all the other ambulances and provide ALS backup like the rest of the city. But that is not how it works here. Instead you have individuals like the OP advocating for driving lights and sirens to a call that they were not dispatched to just for "the action." And that's who we want responding to calls?

That's what I am saying.

Since they are running calls anyway, and it's stupid and dangerous to have multiple agencies racing to the same call, just integrate them like the hospital EMS units.

 

[RedAirplane]

If you're going to have ambulances that are legally part of the system enough to jump calls w/out negative repercussions, then they NEED to be FULLY integrated in the 911 system. I.e. they are assigned a station/post/first in district by the central dispatch, and take ALL assigned calls, and NOT say "eh that nosebleed a block away sounds boring, but that traffic collision 5 blocks away sounds like it'll be a cool call, I'm going to go buff that one!" The volunteer units can then be treated as extra coverage units by central dispatch, in that they're not relied upon to meet the call volume but are nice to have when available to help out the full time units.

BUT if you're not willing to be a full member of the system and take all assigned calls (as a BLS unit you'll get lots of those non-emergent, not really exciting, not-tv-show-worthy "BS" calls) (or in other words, if you ONLY want to buff the "cool" calls and ignore the rest) then you have NO place, anywhere in the system and thus should not be able to legally take ANY 911 calls. Period.

My understanding is the volunteers want to be part of the system properly.

 

[Tigger]

Perhaps FDNY does not wish for them to be integrated for the litany of reasons listed?

 

[46Young]

My understanding is the volunteers want to be part of the system properly.

The problem is, if your wish is to be "part of the system properly," you need to have the ability to keep the units staffed all of the time, not just when members can find the time to pitch in. Inconsistent staffing, and lack of consistent drills and in-service training for all members are two common complanits against volunteers.

A good example of the volunteer staffing issue would be the Sterling Volunteer Rescue Squad. They are part of the Loudon County 911 system. They have two all-volunteer stations, and one combo station with the county. At full strength they would have two ALS units, and 3-4 Trauma (EMT-E) or BLS units. They have two ALS some of the time, maybe half the time, and otherwise just one ALS, sometimes none, just some guy in a chase car. The county wants to put paid ALS in their stations, but they refuse to let them in. Meanwhile, they use copious amounts of automatic aid from Fairfax, MWAA (Dulles Airport), and Prince William County. We had had up to 4 automatic aid units running into Sterling, and the career Loudon units are also tired of running into Sterling regularly.

That is the problem with having volunteers being relied upon as the primary 911 staffing/deployment for a district. If you include the vollies a part of the normal 911 system, and give them a dedicated CSL (Cross Street Location, a post), they can't just decide to staff that post when they feel like it. It needs to be staffed 24/7 or 16 hrs/day if there is no tour1 (overnight) requirement. If you think that it's acceptable to have the vollies staff a CSL inconsistently, then FDNY would have to alter all surrounding units' CSL to reflect the vollie's posting. It simply doesn't make sense.

If you want to play 911, your organization needs to be able to do it 24/7/365, not just when it's convenient for the members to drop in for a few hours. Perhaps the inability to fill this requirement is a good reason why the vollies don't have a dedicated CSL incorporated into FDNY's deployment matrix.

 

[46Young]

To use Sterling as an example again, they have gone so far as to (in the combo station) bump the paid medic crew from that ambo to the engine (career people are dual role FF/EMS, vollies are single role EMS), then downgrade that bus to trauma or bls, just so they could play 911.

 

[DrParasite]

Where I work, we have nine- count them, 9- fire departments. For one county that has less than half a million people. And it is nothing but a constant pain trying to get to a place where we can work with them on calls. Two of them are volunteer. And there is a VAST difference between them and other, paid departments. Case in point the door to truck time for paid departments is <60seconds. The vollies? I've clocked them at 7 minutes before. The training isn't there. The enforcement isn't there. The discipline isn't there.

sounds like apples and orange actually. I'm betting the paid department's staff are in house 24/7, while the volunteers are all responding from home, which accounts for the disparity between time of dispatch to time of responding. If you really want to look into it, look at NFPA 1710 and NFPA 1720.

By the way, in some areas, the paid firefighters and volunteer firefighters go to the exact same fire academies. So the training they initially receive is the same.

I raise you with 10 all volunteer fire departments serving a single township of less than 100 thousand.

now that sounds like my old stomping ground of Franklin Twp, but their population was less than 65k, over a little more than 45 sq miles.....

 

[DrParasite]

That is the problem with having volunteers being relied upon as the primary 911 staffing/deployment for a district. If you include the vollies a part of the normal 911 system, and give them a dedicated CSL (Cross Street Location, a post), they can't just decide to staff that post when they feel like it. It needs to be staffed 24/7 or 16 hrs/day if there is no tour1 (overnight) requirement. If you think that it's acceptable to have the vollies staff a CSL inconsistently, then FDNY would have to alter all surrounding units' CSL to reflect the vollie's posting. It simply doesn't make sense.

Respectfully disagree.

Volunteers can supplement the existing 911 system, but they shouldn't replace it, nor do they reduce the responsibility for the AHJ. Using the Sterling Rescue example, who is responsible for EMS coverage? Sterling or the county? If it's the county, then an ambulance should be budgeted for and staffed to provide proper coverage, regardless of if Sterling has an ambulance available. If Sterling has the ambulance available, they can take calls (provided they notify dispatch that they are in service), and the county ambulance can be relocated or be the backup and enjoy an easy night. If not, then the county can cover the calls, as they are their responsibility. If it's Sterling's responsibility, than they decide how they want to handle coverage (but that really sounds like a bad idea, esp if they have staffing issues)

If a volunteer ambulance wants to "play" in the 911 system, why not let them? Assuming they are closer, answer all calls promptly, and follow the same rules and regulations that other 911 ambulances need to follow, why not? I think having them listen to the scanner and buff calls is both stupid and bad, but if they are dispatched, because they are trained, equipped and closer, then why not? And if they are not in service, than the Authority Having Jurisdiction needs to provide coverage, just like they would if the volunteer agency didn't exist.